A Residence in France Part 1

A Residence in France.

by J. Fenimore Cooper.

PREFACE.

The introduction to Part I. of the "Sketches of Switzerland," leaves very little for the author to say in addition. The reader will be prepared to meet with a long digression, that touches on the situation and interests of another country, and it is probable he will understand the author's motive for thus embracing matter that is not strictly connected with the princ.i.p.al subject of the work.

The first visit of the writer to Switzerland was paid in 1828; that which is related in these two volumes, in 1832. While four years had made no changes in the sublime nature of the region, they had seriously affected the political condition of all Europe. They had also produced a variance of feeling and taste in the author, that is the unavoidable consequences of time and experience. Four years in Europe are an age to the American, as are four years in America to the European. Jefferson has somewhere said, that no American ought to be more than five years, at a time, out of his own country, lest he get _behind_ it. This may be true, as to its _facts_; but the author is convinced that there is more danger of his getting _before_ it, as to _opinion_. It is not improbable that this book may furnish evidence of both these truths.

Some one, in criticising the First Part of Switzerland, has intimated that the writer has a purpose to serve with the "Trades' Unions," by the purport of some of his remarks. As this is a country in which the avowal of a tolerably sordid and base motive seems to be indispensable, even to safety, the writer desires to express his sense of the critic's liberality, as it may save him from a much graver imputation.

There is really a painful humiliation in the reflection, that a citizen of mature years, with as good natural and accidental means for preferment as have fallen to the share of most others, may pa.s.s his life without a _fact_ of any sort to impeach his disinterestedness, and yet not be able to express a generous or just sentiment in behalf of his fellow-creatures, without laying himself open to suspicions that are as degrading to those who entertain them, as they are injurious to all independence of thought, and manliness of character.

RESIDENCE

IN FRANCE.

LETTER I.

Influence of the late Revolution in France.--General Lafayette--Sketch of his Private Life.--My visits to him.--His opinion of Louis XVI.--Mr.

Morris and Mr. Crawford.--Duplicity of Louis XVIII.--Charles X.--Marie Antoinette.--Legitimacy of the Duc de Bordeaux.--Discovery of the Plot of 1822.--Lafayette's conduct on that occasion.--A negro Spy.--General Knyphausen.--Louis-Philippe and Lafayette.--My visit to Court.--The King, the Queen, Madame Adelaide, and the Princesses.--Marshal Jourdan.--The Duke of Orleans.--Interview with the King.--"_Adieu l'Amerique!_"--Conversation with Lafayette.--The _Juste Milieu_.--Monarchy not inconsistent with Republican Inst.i.tutions.--Party in favour of the Duc de Bordeaux.

Paris, February, 1832.

Dear ----,

Your speculations concerning the influence of the late revolution, on the social habits of the French, are more ingenious than true. While the ma.s.s of this nation has obtained less than they had a right to expect by the severe political convulsions they have endured, during the last forty years, they have, notwithstanding, gained something in their rights; and, what is of far more importance, they have gained in a better appreciation of those rights, as well as in the knowledge of the means to turn them to a profitable and practical account. The end will show essential improvements in their condition, or rather the present time shows it already. The change in polite society has been less favourable, although even this is slowly gaining in morals, and in a healthier tone of thought. No error can be greater, than that of believing France has endured so much, without a beneficial return.

In making up my opinions of the old regime, I have had constant recourse to General Lafayette for information. The conversations and anecdotes already sent you, will have prepared you for the fine tone, and perfect candour, with which he speaks even of his bitterest enemies; nor can I remember, in the many confidential and frank communications with which I have been favoured, a single instance where, there has been the smallest reason to suspect he has viewed men through the medium of personal antipathies and prejudices. The candour and simplicity of his opinions form beautiful features in his character; and the _bienseance_ of his mind (if one may use such an expression) throws a polish over his harshest strictures, that is singularly adapted to obtain credit for his judgment.

Your desire to know more of the private life of this extraordinary man, is quite natural; but he has been so long before the public, that it is not easy to say anything new. I may, however, give you a trait or two, to amuse you.

I have seen more of him this winter than the last, owing to the circ.u.mstance of a committee of Americans, that have been appointed to administer succour to the exiled Poles, meeting weekly at my house, and it is rare indeed that he is not present on these benevolent occasions.

He has discontinued his own soirees, too; and, having fewer demands on his time, through official avocations, I gain admittance to him during his simple and quiet dinners, whenever it is asked.

These dinners, indeed, are our usual hours of meeting, for the occupations of the General, in the Chamber, usually keep him engaged in the morning; nor am I commonly at leisure, myself, until about this hour of the day. In Paris, every one dines, nominally, at six; but the deputies being often detained a little later, whenever I wish to see him, I hurry from my own table, and generally reach the Rue d'Anjou in sufficient season to find him still at his.

On quitting the Hotel de l'Etat Major, after being dismissed so unceremoniously from the command of the National Guard, Lafayette returned to his own neat but simple lodgings in the Rue d'Anjou. The hotel, itself, is one of some pretensions, but his apartments, though quite sufficient for a single person, are not among the best it contains, lying on the street, which is rarely or never the case with the princ.i.p.al rooms. The pa.s.sage to them communicates with the great staircase, and the door is one of those simple, retired entrances that, in Paris, so frequently open on the abodes of some of the most ill.u.s.trious men of the age. Here have I seen princes, marshals, and dignitaries of all degrees, ringing for admission, no one appearing to think of aught but the great man within. These things are permitted here, where the mind gets accustomed to weigh in the balance all the different claims to distinction; but it would scarcely do in a country, in which the pursuit of money is the sole and engrossing concern of life; a show of expenditure becoming necessary to maintain it.

The apartments of Lafayette consist of a large ante-chamber, two salons, and an inner room, where he usually sits and writes, and in which, of late, he has had his bed. These rooms are _en suite_, and communicate, laterally, with one or two more, and the offices. His sole attendants in town, are the German valet, named Bastien, who accompanied him in his last visit to America, the footman who attends him with the carriage, and the coachman (there may be a cook, but I never saw a female in the apartments). Neither wears a livery, although all his appointments, carriages, horses, and furniture, are those of a gentleman. One thing has struck me as a little singular. Notwithstanding his strong attachment to America and to her usages, Lafayette, while the practice is getting to be common in Paris, has not adopted the use of carpets. I do not remember to have seen one, at La Grange, or in town.

When I show myself at the door, Bastien, who usually acts as porter, and who has become quite a diplomatist in these matters, makes a sign of a.s.sent, and intimates that the General is at dinner. Of late, he commonly dispenses with the ceremony of letting it be known who has come, but I am at once ushered into the bed-room. Here I find Lafayette seated at a table, just large enough to contain one cover and a single dish; or a table, in other words, so small as to be covered with a napkin. His little white lap-dog is his only companion. As it is always understood that I have dined, no ceremony is used, but I take a seat at the chimney corner, while he goes on with his dinner. His meals are quite frugal, though good; a _poulet roti_ invariably making one dish.

There are two or three removes, a dish at a time, and the dinner usually concludes with some preserves or dried fruits, especially dates, of which he is extremely fond. I generally come in for one or two of the latter.

All this time, the conversation is on what has transpired in the Chambers during the day, the politics of Europe, nullification in America, or the gossip of the chateau, of which he is singularly well informed, though he has ceased to go there.

The last of these informal interviews with General Lafayette, was one of peculiar interest. I generally sit but half an hour, leaving him to go to his evening engagements, which, by the way, are not frequent; but, on this occasion, he told me to remain, and I pa.s.sed nearly two hours with him.

We chatted a good deal of the state of society under the old regime.

Curious to know his opinions of their private characters, I asked a good many questions concerning the royal family. Louis XVI. he described as a-well-meaning man, addicted a little too much to the pleasures of the table, but who would have done well enough had he not been surrounded by bad advisers. I was greatly surprised by one of his remarks. "Louis XVI," observed Lafayette, "owed his death as much to the bad advice of Gouverneur Morris, as to any one other thing." You may be certain I did not let this opinion go unquestioned; for, on all other occasions, in speaking of Mr. Morris, his language had been kind and even grateful. He explained himself, by adding, that Mr. Morris, coming from a country like America, was listened to with great respect, and that on all occasions he gave his opinions against democracy, advising resistance, when resistance was not only too late but dangerous. He did not call in question the motives of Mr. Morris, to which he did full justice, but merely affirmed that he was a bad adviser. He gave me to understand that the representatives of America had not always been faithful to the popular principle, and even went into details that it would be improper for me to repeat. I have mentioned this opinion of Mr. Morris, because his aristocratical sentiments were no secret, because they were mingled with no expressions of personal severity, and because I have heard them from other quarters. He p.r.o.nounced a strong eulogium on the conduct of Mr. Crawford, which he said was uniformly such as became an American minister.

There is nothing, however, novel in these instances, of our representatives proving untrue to the prominent feeling of the country, on the subject of popular rights. It is the subject of very frequent comment in Europe, and sometimes of complaint on the part of those who are struggling for what they conceive to be their just privileges; many of them having told me, personally, that our agents frequently stand materially in their way.

Louis XVIII, Lafayette p.r.o.nounced to be the _falsest_ man he had ever met with; to use his own expression, "_l'homme le plus faux_." He gave him credit for a great deal of talent, but added that his duplicity was innate, and not the result of his position, for it was known to his young a.s.sociates, in early youth, and that they used to say among themselves, as young men, and in their ordinary gaieties, that it would be unsafe to confide in the Comte de Provence.

Of Charles X he spoke kindly, giving him exactly a different character.

He thought him the most honest of the three brothers, though quite unequal to the crisis in which he had been called to reign. He believed him sincere in his religious professions, and thought the charge of his being a professed Jesuit by no means improbable.

Marie Antoinette he thought an injured woman. On the subject of her reputed gallantries he spoke cautiously, premising that, as an American, I ought to make many allowances for a state of society, that was altogether unknown in our country. Treating this matter with the discrimination of a man of the world, and the delicacy of a gentleman, he added that he entirely exonerated her from all of the coa.r.s.e charges that had proceeded from vulgar clamour, while he admitted that she had betrayed a partiality for a young Swede[1] that was, at least, indiscreet for one in her situation, though he had no reason to believe her attachment had led her to the length of criminality.

[Footnote 1: A Count Koningsmarke.]

I asked his opinion concerning the legitimacy of the Duc de Bordeaux, but he treated the rumour to the contrary, as one of those miserable devices to which men resort to effect the ends of party, and as altogether unworthy of serious attention.

I was amused with the simplicity with which he spoke of his own efforts to produce a change of government, during the last reign. On this subject he had been equally frank even before the recent revolution, though there would have been a manifest impropriety in my repeating what had then pa.s.sed between us. This objection is now removed in part, and I may recount one of his anecdotes, though I can never impart to it the cool and quiet humour with which it was related. We were speaking of the attempt of 1822, or the plot which existed in the army. In reply to a question of mine, he said--"Well, I was to have commanded in that revolution, and when the time came, I got into my carriage, without a pa.s.sport, and drove across the country to ----, where I obtained post-horses, and proceeded as fast as possible towards ----. At ----, a courier met me, with the unhappy intelligence that our plot was discovered, and that several of our princ.i.p.al agents were arrested. I was advised to push for the frontier, as fast as I could. But we turned round in the road, and I went to Paris, and took my seat in the Chamber of Deputies. They looked very queer, and a good deal surprised when they saw me, and I believe they were in great hopes that I had run away. The party of the ministers were loud in their accusations against the opposition for encouraging treason, and Perier and Constant, and the rest of them, made indignant appeals against such unjust accusations. I took a different course. I went into the tribune, and invited the ministers to come and give a history of my political life; of my changes and treasons, as they called them; and said that when they had got through, I would give the character and history of theirs. This settled the matter, for I heard no more from them." I inquired if he had not felt afraid of being arrested and tried. "Not much," was his answer.

"They knew I denied the right of foreigners to impose a government on France, and they also knew they had not kept faith with France under the charter. I made no secret of my principles, and frequently put letters unsealed into the post office, in which I had used the plainest language about the government. On the whole, I believe they were more afraid of me than I was of them."

It is impossible to give an idea, in writing, of the pleasant manner he has of relating these things--a manner that receives additional piquancy from his English, which, though good, is necessarily broken. He usually prefers the English in such conversations.

"By the way," he suddenly asked me, "where was the idea of Harvey Birch, in the Spy, found?" I told him that the thought had been obtained from an anecdote of the revolution, related to me by Governor Jay, some years before the book was written. He laughingly remarked that he could have supplied the hero of a romance, in the person of a negro named Harry (I believe, though the name has escaped me), who acted as a spy, both for him and Lord Cornwallis, during the time he commanded against that officer in Virginia. This negro he represented as being true to the American cause, and as properly belonging to his service, though permitted occasionally to act for Lord Cornwallis, for the sake of gaining intelligence. After the surrender of the latter, he called on General Lafayette, to return a visit. Harry was in an anteroom cleaning his master's boots, as Lord Cornwallis entered. "Ha! Master Harry,"

exclaimed the latter, "you are here, are you?" "Oh, yes, ma.s.ser Cornwallis--muss try to do little for de country," was the answer. This negro, he said, was singularly clever and bold, and of sterling patriotism!

He made me laugh with a story, that he said the English officers had told him of General Knyphausen, who commanded the Hessian mercenaries, in 1776. This officer, a rigid martinet, knew nothing of the sea, and not much more of geography. On the voyage between England and America, he was in the ship of Lord Howe, where he pa.s.sed several uncomfortable weeks, the fleet having an unusually long pa.s.sage, on account of the bad sailing of some of the transports. At length Knyphausen could contain himself no longer, but marching stiffly up to the admiral one day, he commenced with--"My lord, I know it is the duty of a soldier to be submissive at sea, but, being entrusted with the care of the troops of His Serene Highness, my master, I feel it my duty just to inquire, if it be not possible, that during some of the dark nights, we have lately had, _we may have sailed past America_?"

I asked him if he had been at the chateau lately. His reply was very brief and expressive. "The king denies my account of the programme of the Hotel de Ville, and we stand in the position of two gentlemen, who, in substance, have given each other the lie. Circ.u.mstances prevent our going to the Bois de Boulogne to exchange shots," he added, smiling, "but they also prevent our exchanging visits." I then ventured to say that I had long foreseen what would be the result of the friendship of Louis-Philippe, and, for the first time, in the course of our conversations, I adverted to my own visit to the palace in his company, an account of which I will extract, for your benefit, from my note-book.[2]

[Footnote 2: The period referred to was in 1830.]

In the morning I received a note from General Lafayette, in which he informed me that Mr. M'Lane, who is here on a visit from London, was desirous of being presented; that there was a reception in the evening, at which he intended to introduce the minister to England, Mr. Rives not having yet received his new credentials, and, of course, not appearing in matters of ceremony. General Lafayette pressed me so strongly to be of the party, in compliment to Mr. M'Lane, that, though but an indifferent courtier, and though such a visit was contrary to my quiet habits, I could do nothing but comply.

At the proper hour, General Lafayette had the good nature to call and take me up, and we proceeded, at once, for Mr. M'Lane. With this gentleman we drove to the Palais Royal, my old brother officer, Mr.

T----, who was included in the arrangement, following in his own carriage.

We found the inner court crowded, and a throng about the entrance to the great staircase; but the appearance of Lafayette cleared the way, and there was a movement in the crowd which denoted his great personal popularity. I heard the words "_des Americains_" pa.s.sing from one to another, showing how completely he was identified with us and our principles, in the public mind. One or two of the younger officers of the court were at the foot of the stairs to receive him, though whether their presence was accidental or designed, I cannot say; but I suspect the latter. At all events the General was received with the profoundest respect, and the most smiling a.s.siduity.

The ante-chamber was already crowded, but following our leader, his presence cleared the way for us, until he got up quite near to the doors, where some of the most distinguished men of France were collected. I saw many in the throng whom I knew, and the first minute or two were pa.s.sed in nods of recognition. My attention was, however, soon attracted to a dialogue between Marshal Soult and Lafayette, that was carried on with the most perfect _bonhomie_ and simplicity. I did not hear the commencement, but found they were speaking of their legs, which both seemed to think the worse for wear. "But you have been wounded in the leg, monsieur?" observed Lafayette. "This limb was a little _mal traite_ at Genoa," returned the marshal, looking down at a leg that had a very game look: "but you, General, you too, were hurt in America?"

"Oh! that was nothing; it happened more than fifty years ago, and _then it was in a good cause_--it was the fall and the fracture that made me limp." Just at this moment, the great doors flew open, and this _quasi_ republican court standing arrayed before us, the two old soldiers limped forward.

The King stood near the door, dressed as a General of the National Guards, entirely without decorations, and pretty well tricoloured. The Queen, Madame Adelaide, the Princesses, and several of the children, were a little farther removed, the two former standing in front, and the latter being grouped behind them. But one or two ladies were present, nor did I see anything at the commencement of the evening of the Ducs d'Orleans and de Nemours.

Lafayette was one of the first that entered, and of course we kept near him. The King advanced to meet him with an expression of pleasure--I thought it studied--but they shook hands quite cordially. We were then presented by name, and each of us had the honour of shaking hands, if that can be considered an honour, which fell to the share of quite half of those who entered. The press was so great that there was no opportunity to say anything. I believe we all met with the usual expressions of welcome, and there the matter ended.